We asked a bouncer on The Street about all the bullshit he’s seen
The craziest club to bounce is ‘a toss-up between Cannon, Cottage, and Cloister’
Bouncers on Prospect Avenue don’t have an easy job.
They manage the thin line between fun, semi-controlled chaos and all-out debauchery. They see us at our worst–not the glazed-eyed students on their laptops in lecture that we are on weekday mornings, but the tipsy and often idiotic college kids we become from Thursday till Saturday.
Needless to say, the bouncers on The Street have seen some shit go down.
At 6’9″ and 400 pounds, “Big Al” is a self-described “very large man” and a long-time veteran of The Street. He’s worked for six eating clubs over the last ten years: Cannon, Tower, TI, Terrace, Cloister, and Cottage.
We talked to Al about the different clubs, the students who frequent Prospect Avenue, and what it’s really like being a bouncer there.
A student with Cary, one of Al’s fellow bouncers at Tower (Al was not available to be photographed)
What do you think of the job in general?
Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes exciting or aggravating. All of the above, really.
Which was your favorite club to work at? Which club is the craziest to work at as a bouncer?
I used to be a cigarette smoker, so I liked working at Terrace because you could smoke indoors. Craziest is a toss-up between Cannon, Cottage, and Cloister. Cloister has a lot more exits, so you have to have more guys to watch more entrance ways. There’s always a lot of people there trying to sneak in. The company that I work for does 8 of the 11 clubs now, so I’ve worked almost everywhere.
How long is a night shift and with how many bouncers?
We usually start between 10 and 11, and go to 2:30-3:30. The average is about one to two times a week, although when I worked Terrace, it was three nights a week. And there’s at least four bouncers, normally–some guys will stay at the front door, some will be at the back door, and some will float around in the club.
How would you describe the average Princeton student going out? Are they respectful? Rude?
Most of the time they’re respectful. I’d say 95% of the time.
How often do you have to kick someone out?
Sometimes it’ll be one to two people a night, sometimes 20.
What does one have to do to get kicked out?
Nine times out of ten we kick someone out because they’re overly intoxicated. Or else they’re annoying someone inside, and the officer of the club wants them removed. Or else they snuck in.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen on the Street?
The craziest thing I’ve seen was at Terrace. It was a Thursday night, I think, and they had a band there that mainly dealt with drums. They were set up in the dining hall, and they started walking around and doing their performance–and then they went outside as part of the show and brought everybody out of the house with them.
These guys didn’t have their shirts on, and it must have been 35 degrees out there.Then they did a bit on the front yard there, and then turned around and wanted to come back in. They brought everyone in all at the same time. Must have been 200 people. It was crazy–five guys at the front door all checking IDs.
What are your favorite nights?
Costume events. You get to see the creativity of some of the students.
What’s the nicest thing you’ve seen a student do for another student in trouble?
About four or five years ago, a student walked up to Tower club–she’d never been there before–as someone else walked outside, extremely intoxicated. This person had no one to walk home with.
This girl took the other girl back to her room–it was raining outside–made sure she got back to the room okay, and then came back to the club two hours later to give us an update about how she was doing. It happens quite often, more often than you would think.
Can you tell upperclassmen from underclassmen?
Sometimes. The newbies don’t know exactly what to do or how things work.
What advice would you give to students for how to keep each other safe while enjoying The Street?
Just watch each other’s back. And when somebody says no, “no” means “no”.
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